For a number of years, nickel-cadmium and other types of batteries have been manufactured by winding on an arbor a sandwich of a positive plate, a negative plate and separator materials, to produce a battery core. For some battery types, the positive and negative plates are axially offset relative to one another so that the edge of a plate of one polarity projects from one end of the core and the edge of a plate of the opposite polarity projects from the other end of the core. Percussive welding procedures have been used to attach terminal tabs to the opposite ends of such battery cores, after which the core and tab assembly have been inserted into a surrounding metal container. Then, by inserting a welding electrode through a bore left in the center of the core upon its removal from the winding arbor, the terminal tab at the bottom of the core has been welded to the bottom of the container. The terminal tab at the top of the core has subsequently been connected to an appropriate cover assembly in the familiar manner.
Although this method of manufacture produces batteries which are quite suitable for their intended applications, the method has typically required a considerable amount of manual labor to complete the winding of the cores, the attaching of the terminal tabs and the inserting of the assembled core and tabs into the battery container. A need has existed for some time to simplify the structure of the batteries to facilitate automatic manufacture and assembly of their component parts.